It is this Monday, January 23 that opens, in Paris, the trial of two French lawyers suspected of having produced false documents during a trial in 2018 to try, in vain, to exonerate Robert Dawes. This 50-year-old Briton is considered one of the biggest drug traffickers in Europe. The two lawyers are accused of complicity in attempted fraud in judgment and violation of professional secrecy. Two Britons are also on trial in this case: the trafficker and one of his relatives.
The case began in December 2018 at the special assize court in Paris. Two tenors of the Parisian bar, master Joseph Cohen Sabban and master Xavier Nogueras, defend their British client Robert Dawes.
This one is judged to have imported five years earlier a little less than a ton and a half of cocaine on board an Air France flight which connects Caracas to Paris. The total value of the seizure is estimated at 50 million euros.
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At the opening of the proceedings, the two lawyers produce a supposed Spanish order. It presents as illegal a crucial telephone tapping for the accusation, since the trafficker there claims the paternity of the drug. They also provide transcriptions of telephone tapping and sound recordings.
Verdict expected on February 7
It is precisely these writings that pose a problem for the judges, and at the end of the trial which will condemn the trafficker to twenty-two years of criminal imprisonment and a fine of 30 million euros, a judicial investigation is opened.
The investigations will reveal that the documents were produced by a relative of the trafficker from his cell. But for the investigating judges, it was impossible for the two lawyers to suspect anything. For their part, the two figures of the bar claim to have been deceived.
The verdict will be delivered on February 7.